Barcode Issues

[Paul_D_Cordingley@adobeforums.com]

I am creating an website which will incorporate a special offer coupon, incorporating a barcode. The idea is that the customer will print the coupon from the site and then use in specific stores.

Here's the problem: As found in the past, when customers with poor, low resolution printers, print the coupon, the scanners in the stores cannot read the barcode. I think this was partly due to the fact that the screen JPEG of the coupon was not good enough quality.

First and foremost we require the customers to print at a specific size, i.e. 100% (so the barcode works in the stores). I am not sure how to go about this. If I create a JPEG (or similar bitmap file) that is above 72 DPI then it simply appears bigger than I want when shown on screen. Is there a way…

a) to override the customers print settings so that the online coupon prints at 100%. Or

b) is there a way to reference a high-res PDF file, so that once the customer prints it will be 100% and good enough quality to be read by the store scanners. I am not sure if Acrobat would be helpful or not!

I know that was a bit long winded but any help at this stage would be much appreciated.

Paul

[MarkATS@adobeforums.com]

In Acrobat 7 and 8, Document Properties, under the Advanced Tab you can set Page Scaling for an individual PPDF to None.

[Jon Bessant]

To add to Marks' response, ensure the barcode is a vector object and not
a bitmap - this will surely overcome quality issues ...

Jon

[MarkATS@adobeforums.com]

or use a barcode font, that way you don't need to rely on image resolution.

[Nikki_Polani@adobeforums.com]

Paul,
The best way to ensure a scanable bar code for the customer is to provide a hi-res pdf with font embedded and require printing (on white paper) at 100% as you have done. If the customer has weak or light ink coverage you can't make up for that but a sharp, undistorted bar code is what you need. Even some bar code fonts don't produce quality codes believe it or not. What are you using to generate your code? Bear Rock or some other group? If prints of the pdf coupon scan consistently at your office then your customers should not have a problem at the stores.